Management Thoughts for Entrepreneurs

Yesterday on Memorial Day, we gave tribute to all veterans who sacrificed themselves for giving freedom and liberty to our country and other nations in the world. What could Entrepreneurs do to honor current veterans?

When you hire employees, should you consider veterans? Serving in the armed forces instills discipline, adherence to established processes, teamwork, courage, overcoming adversity and other fine attributes that Entrepreneurs should be seeking from qualified prospects.

Veterans bring with them an intrinsic understanding of how loyalty adds to team proficiency and builds trust in a work environment. For Entrepreneurs looking to make a long-term investment in an employee, veterans often outperform other candidates as proven team players.

Through service, training, and lifestyle, veterans typically have the work ethic that any Entrepreneur would be thrilled to replicate in all of the organization’s employees.

Entrepreneurs should, all things being equal, give preference to veterans who have served our country.

Good decisions for significant matters should take into account all angles, even arguing from other points of view. Not considering all sides, even one with which you might disagree, might lead to poor decisions. Making the arguments for a case different from their own allows the Entrepreneur to clearly see all sides of an important decision. Arriving at a decision after considering all viewpoints is best when one makes all the arguments as if they are their own.

Entrepreneurs should also evaluate, at least for significant issues, potential unintended consequences of their decisions. Take an example of developing an incentive program. If you have developed a program that correlates high performance with high reward, it is of course your intended consequence. But, what about unintended consequences of employees cheating or manipulating the system to obtain higher compensation? How have you protected the company against such unintended consequences?

When making crucial decisions consider all sides and potential unintended consequences.

Entrepreneurs understand the need for a clear Vision and the requirement to develop an appropriate Mission for that vision.

How many of you are really focused on the Vision and Mission (V&M) when making significant decisions? Do you get caught up in the day-to-day or near-term issues and challenges that you lose sight of the V&M? Do you get distracted on other opportunities that seem too good to pass up?

Be aware of potential distractions (disguised as opportunities) while you focus on your Vision and Mission.

Starting Entrepreneurs often exercise strong control where virtually all decisions are made by them. Entrepreneurs are not yet ready to delegate responsibility and trust their people with decision-making authority. Entrepreneurs do not want their people to make mistakes.

That is not the way to develop people and grow the company. Entrepreneurs have to be willing to allow their people to learn how to make good decisions on their own. This may result in a few mistakes, but let those be learning experiences rather than creating an environment of fear to make decisions.

Entrepreneurs should let their people make mistakes and learn from those situations. There is nothing wrong in having checks and balances to prevent unchecked major mistakes hurting the organization.

Managing a growing company is similar to watching a child learn to walk. Parents allow their children to fall so that they can get up and learn to walk. Entrepreneurs need to do the same.

Entrepreneurs like to get their hands dirty and are involved in doing stuff. This is as a result of their expertise, desire and passion.

What happens as their company grows? They cannot be only involved in “doing,” they have to focus on thinking.

An analogy would be that of an entrepreneur who is an expert in building a widget. He/she can spend enough time on developing and building the perfect widget. However, at some point the focus should be on developing a strategy of how to market and sell the widgets, building lots of widgets at a low cost, creating the organization to build and sell widgets, opening new locations, and so on.

Entrepreneurs have to shift their role from “doing” to “thinking” in order to get to the next level.